Richard Lea 

Reader reviews roundup

A golden review of Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding, an encounter with Rebecca Solnit and a plunge into Neil Gaiman's Ocean at the End of the Lane
  
  

A baseball in a glove
The 'honey-toned' charms of baseball. Photograph: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images Photograph: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images

Summer is finally here – if not necessarily in the real world, then at least in the cloudless world of Poster poems – bringing with it a sun-drenched review of Chad Harbach's feted debut novel, The Art of Fielding. Swithering begins by evoking the "honey-toned" charms of baseball, recalling the "warm summer evening long ago" when she first watched a game. She's not sure she envies Hardbach, though, whose novel struggles to live up to "that massive advance, the pre-publication hype".

Harbach is no modern Melville ... despite his playful allusions to classical and nineteenth century literature and his whimsically-named characters, he spouts no fire and brimstone and his plot interludes on the art of fielding are mercifully shorter than Melville's asides on blubber and scrimshaw. Indeed his smooth, lulling prose so rarely sings or shocks that I found little to flag for quotes beyond Henry Skrimshander's reflections on the terror and loneliness of the star rookie player, "You can't follow me here... you'll never know what this is like."

Some will compare Harbach with Jonathan Franzen, she continues, who blessed the jacket with a quote, but "mercifully Harbach lacks Franzen's tendency to bludgeon the reader over the head with social commentary."

Though she doesn't intend to damn The Art of Fielding with faint praise it is the admirable quality of hardback's "quality paper" and "elegant font" which seems to spark swithering's enthusiasm, and not Harbach's "plodding" novel.

When his characters face high stakes, he swerves, turns away: a shocking event morphs into a mere bumped head, a deus ex machina averts a college scandal, a much-dreaded former lover arrives from out of town only to fade like a Republican candidate after a Primary, a love triangle threatening heartbreak and broken bones is tolerated with no more than grumpy animosity, a minor pothole on the road of true bro-mance.

Of course stories need not always be full of incident, she sighs, but "any conflicts of heart and soul in The Art of Fielding are handled too gently to leave blood on the page".

RedBirdFlies is another disappointed reader, not because Rebecca Solnit's account of her mother's slide into dementia, The Faraway Nearby, is no good, but because it pales in comparison to her "spectacular" ability to captivate an audience. Full to the brim with an event hosted by Alex Clark at the London Literature Festival, RedBirdFlies pays tribute to the "anecdotes and philosophical meanderings of Solnit in person, as she spoke without pause, the voice of a poet". Solnit's account of "the year that passed while her mother was regressing" is "good", but on the page she "stops short of going too deep into her subject".

I understand this reluctance, for that percentage of women out there who had the kind of relationship with their mother that Solnit did, there will be many nods of the head in recognition of what she says without having to go into detail.

The review finishes by returning to the live event, where RedBirdFlies doesn't quite get the chance to ask if a challenging relationship, such as Solnit describes, can also be a gift. We'll never know how the author would have answered, but for RedBirdFlies the answer is pretty clear: "She may not have been able to fix her mother, but it may not be a coincidence that Rebecca Solnit is outspoken and active in terms of her support of nature, the environment, politics and art."

TBagpuss is far from disappointed with Neil Gaiman's latest novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, suggesting that it's more than a "very good book. In fact, I think it is a great book." Gaiman captures vividly the impotence of children "in the face of adult power", the fears and joys of childhood and the disconnect between happiness and contentment.

This is a Gaiman book, so it's no surprise that there is magic and myth. Names, (true names) are important, and the triumvirate of the Hempstock women are undoubtedly related to the triple goddess of maiden, mother and crone.

Fans will also be prepared for the lack of a safe, happy ending, TBagpuss continues, "but there is hope. (And grief, and memories, and sacrifice, and fear, and love) And there is comfort, too." This is a book which TBagpuss says is to be read "again and again", a book which will resonate with those who remember childhood, and spark the memories of those who have forgotten.

Thanks for all this week's reviews. If I've mentioned yours, jog my memory at richard.lea@theguardian.com, and I'll see if I can find you something "very good", or even "great" from our cupboards.

 

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